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Iza Thomson - Wandering Earth Builder, Banaue (2026)

05/01/2026

It was a true delight to assist Ala .permakultura on her cob and adobe workshop building the walls of the Seed Bank she designed for (a fantastic organisation protecting filipino heirloom, organic seeds) 🌱

We first met online through the online earth building academy and have since kept in touch about earth building in the Philippines and shared techniques so it was so special to finally meet in person and share this workshop together!

This work is my passion and sharing this knowledge with people who are so eager to learn gives me life! It was extra touching for me that I was able to use my hands to work with the local materials of the Philippines- clay, sand and an abundance of rice straw! While foot mixing to traditional Filipino music, energised by delicious local food from the land in such a stunning location ❤️‍🔥😍❤️‍🔥

Thank you so much to all the participants who came for your curiosity and openness, to Global Seed Savers for being such generous and welcoming hosts, and to Ala for being such a thoughtful and inspiring teacher to share alongside. Grateful 🤎🤎🤎

02/01/2026

A very special week with sleeping in a traditional bale (timber home that can be entirely de/re-constructed as joinery are pegs or mortise and tenoned!), weeding and clearing the gorgeous clay-mortared rice terraces that were tragically damaged in the recent typhoons, cooking and eating every meal around a fire (most food from the land!), and walking the steep jungle mountainsides. While my specific ancestors hail from some valleys over in Cagayan, it felt significant to be learning to pound, winnow and process rice as they had done. Always great to be humbled as you stumble with new movements 😅.

Mamerto put it perfectly: "Mud is the best teacher- modern people have a perception that it is too dirty or unhygienic, but once you work in the rice fields, you realise mud gives you life" (paraphrased).

They have a book of photographs by Eduardo Masferré which showed the indigenous way of life, and Mamerto pointed out a picture of a circle of people, barely clothed, holding hands and singing and dancing in the mud. I couldn't help but smile at the similarity between it and some of the cob stomps I've done with friends.

Feeling incredibly grateful for the opportunity to come to the Philippines and especially to the Ifugao Center for Living Culture for being such a welcoming landing pad on these ancestral soils 🤎

30/09/2025

Being surrounded by so many kindhearted and passionate people at 's Clayfest 2025 was a delightfully inspiring and affirming experience!

It was also very special for me to return to be back at the brickworks where I had first landed two days after arriving to this country one year prior for Clayfest 2024. So much has happened and it felt very full circle to be here now 🌀

It was a real privilege to speak alongside so many fascinating and experienced people at the conference on Thursday. And then, to host a short workshop at the Saturday gathering sharing about sourcing and identifying clayey subsoils, something which has bought me much joy. There were soo many inspiring workshops, talks and builds over the three days.

However, as per, my favourite moments are often the incidental chats where we can dork out about horse manure or cow manure being our preferred additive at 11pm on a Friday, or the complexity of living in natural building community with humans who are humans.

Thank you so much to Maria and Annabelle for all the time and care you put into organising this event, and to everyone else who made it possible. It is so important that this still quite niche industry has a way to connect in community and I'm very grateful!

02/06/2025

Just recieved these photos from the two Clay Finishes workshops that I , and Dan facilitated for 's trade school series at the Knowle West .

It was a delight to use this clay subsoil from the Springfield Allotments dug by the volunteers. Both Dan and I love using clay straight from the ground 🤎🤎. Dan was covering fired clay tiles, while I covered unfired clay plaster.

We all started together by soaking and sieving the clay subsoil. Dan's clay went through an extra fine sieve to make a creamy slurrey which was painted onto tiles. The participants then used the scraffito technique to scratch their house numbers into the tiles which all turned out super sweet!

Next, we went downstairs to process my clay into plaster. We mixed together the clay, sand and straw and applied the base coat over the woodwool boards. I think practicing on the "real thing" is a great way to build confidence so I was greatful that offered up some wall space for us to adorn with mud ✨🌟

I'm super happy to have been apart of the trade school which is making these skills accessible and it is always a delight working alongside ya, Dan!

Thank you Hester and everyone else at WeCanMake for organising this day and Ibi Feher for these photos!

25/05/2025

It was a delight clay plastering for the team for monument feature garden at the

Julz is wonderful and skilful so it is no surprise he assembled a wonderful and skilful team that were lots of fun plastering alongside! We applied a .stanwix red clay plaster to the planter boxes and gave it a textured brush finish.

Super happy to have contributed some small part to this. I adore seeing natural materials be given more spotlight, as they deserve! Thanks for having me!

Lovely crew:

Sonny and Leon

03/03/2025

In honour of Martin Ulenberg… 🤎

Last month I heard the devastating news of Martin’s passing. I wasn’t able to attend his funeral because I live on the other side of the globe, which simply would not be possible without him. Martin was the incomprehensibly generous donator of over $6650 to my fundraiser for me to move to Wales to study a Masters of Sustainable Architecture at CAT.

He gave so much of himself to the earth-building community. To us, he was a generous and inspiring friend and collaborator. He was a committee member and treasurer of the Earth Building Association of NZ (EBANZ), and donated many volunteer hours to draw up diagrams for the revised Earth Building Standards so we can legally get earth buildings through code!

You can download them all here:
https://www.standards.govt.nz/shop/NZS-42972024
https://www.standards.govt.nz/shop/nzs-42982024
https://www.standards.govt.nz/shop/nzs-42992024

When Martin and I first met in person at the EBANZ conference we immediately bonded over our love for Earth Building; which was our community, our craft, our light forwards, and our greater meaning. Something more easily felt than articulated.

Martin and I had just one, brief yet potent encounter before five months later, when his shocking and immense donation was accompanied by only: “You're the future Iza, go for it!”

I burst into tears then. And I burst into tears again upon hearing of his passing a few weeks ago while on-site at CAT. I don’t understand. I may never understand.

Martin, you gave me the greatest gift. Hope.

Trust, a quivering sense of worthiness, and a lighthouse of hope.

You believed a better world was possible and you truly gave all of yourself towards planting the seeds for it to manifest. Your support undeniably altered the course of my life. Your gentle yet steady impact lives on through all those that you touched.

May you rest peacefully and deeply within the earth again 🤎

08/02/2025

Had a really lovely couple of days with and laying this floor up near Birmingham! Always so much fun working, giggling and chatting away with these wonderful mud humans. We were the first contractors the home owner-builder had bought in, I think he has done a great job!

10/11/2024

Seven months after first posting about it, some anonymous person yesterday became the 72nd person to donate to my fundraiser! I feel the large but gentle hands of this experience pushing me up what felt like an insurmountable mountain.

It is mind-boggling to me that I am actually over here now, studying this Master’s of Sustainable Architecture at CAT

I’ve just had my second immersive week of learning in the Welsh rainforest. We spend one week per month all living together at the CAT campus - students, tutors, lecturers, and volunteers. For the next three weeks, we do distance learning and self-guided study from wherever we are across the British Isles.

Here are some pictures of some of the antics from the last two weeks/ months at CAT; the 7.2m tall rammed earth walls that surround the lecture hall, putting welsh slate onto an experimental load-bearing hempcrete arch (!!!), a timed competition to build the longest bridge 300mm above ground (before weight) with only dowels, the banquet of books, a sweet spot to pitch my tent while at site, the river I swim in each morning (one morning an otter joined me!!!), a community engagement day with a town an hour north.

Every time people ask how I got here, I’m reminded how beautifully ridiculous it was- hosting fundraising workshops while I hitchhiked up Aotearoa with a backpack of tools and a bucket of mud samples, as well as the unbelievable amount of online financial support I received from dearest friends to total strangers and all in between. I’m often stopped by waves of immense gratitude, disbelief and bewilderment when I remember it all.

I am loving my time here. I’m slowly finding my feet in these unfamiliar but ancestral lands. The people talk in funny accents and with kindness. British trees make a lot more sense rooted over here than in NZ. There are a lot of passionate, motivated people collaborating on inspiring projects. I feel far away from home but closer to the rest of the world. I am grateful and excited about what more is to come.

Thank you to everyone who has supported me and for all the continuous support. Its incomprehensible

11/10/2024

It was an honour to present at last week's Working With Earth : Architecture & Landscape symposium hosted by at the

I spoke about identifying and then building with the subsoils, bio-fibres and aggregates found directly on site. Using hyper-local materials to decrease embodied carbon and increase our connection to the Earth is something I'm very passionate about.

At lunchtime, Bee Rowan and I demonstrated mixing natural materials and then plastering with them. made an excellent comment during; "architects not touching the materials is like a garden designer not touching plants." I'll be repeating it!

It was a fantastic two days listening to many inspiring speakers share their projects and how we can collectively move forward

Held in the beautifully designed space by with a mudbrick floor, hempcrete insulation, internal lime plaster and external oak cladding!

Thank you for organising a fantastic event, thank you for providing our demo materials, and thank you for the great photos!

22/09/2024

's upcoming course has given me a nice excuse to revisit some of the projects we did together and share them!

This was a lime plaster over an adobe brick extension of a historic home in Atawhai. It was done over an in-person course she taught. I went around at golden hour and snapped some pics after the course was finished ❤️

On the Earth Building Academy, which starts tomorrow Sep 22, you get 30+ hours of videos, live Q&A's sessions, 1:1 support, live skillshops and lifetime access to resources. I got the most out of the course when I went to the live sessions and connected with everyone else taking it. I've been raving about how great the course is since I first took it and now im an official affiliate so you can my code IZA10 for 10% off. If you do this, Verena is generously offering me 20% of your fees to go my fundraiser which supports me to pay for international fees for a masters of sustsinable architecture at the Centre of Alternative Technology (which starts tomorrow too!!!ahhhh!!!)

Iza Thomson - Wandering Earth Builder

05/01/2026

02/01/2026

30/09/2025

02/06/2025

25/05/2025

03/03/2025

08/02/2025

10/11/2024

11/10/2024

22/09/2024

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